Von Germeten received her PhD from the University of California Berkeley in 2003 and was a Fellow at the Princeton Center for the Study of Religion in 2003 and 2004. She also has an MA in Spanish language literature and wrote a thesis on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz's use of indigenous Mexican language and religion. Prof. von Germeten was affiliated with the Stanford University Center for Latin American Studies in 2008 and 2009. She has contributed essays, reviews and articles to several edited volumes and journals, including Black Mexico, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Colonial Latin American Historical Review, and Local Religion in Colonial Mexico.